Texts in Conversation
The Christian theologian Ambrose uses the Wisdom of Solomon as an authoritative source for teaching about wisdom in Christian tradition, quoting its warning that wisdom avoids deceitful and undisciplined minds.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 1:4
Deuterocanon
2 because he is found by those who don’t put him to the test, and is manifested to those who trust him. 3 for crooked thoughts separate from God. His Power convicts when it is tested, and exposes the foolish; 4 because wisdom will not enter into a soul that devises evil, nor dwell in a body that is enslaved by sin. 5 For a holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will depart from thoughts that are without understanding, and will be ashamed when unrighteousness has come in. 6 For wisdom is a spirit who loves man, and she will not hold a blasphemer guiltless for his lips, because God is witness of his inmost self, and is a true overseer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Ambrose, On the Holy Spirit 3.17
Early Christian
Or because, into a malicious soul wisdom does not enter, the evil disposition of the traitor uttered this, and he valued the suffering of the Lord's body at a dearer rate, that by the immensity of the price he might draw all away from the faith. And therefore the Lord offered Himself without price, that the necessity of poverty might hold no one back from Christ. The patriarchs sold Him for a small price that all might buy. Isaiah said: You that have no money go buy and drink; eat ye without money, that he might gain him who had no money. O traitor Judas, you value the ointment of His Passion at three hundred pence, and sell His Passion for thirty pence. Profuse in valuing, mean in selling.
Date: 390–395 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... While the nineteen chapters comprising this work provided a well of wisdom for the Fathers to plumb (Augustine alone refers to Wisdom of Solomon more than eight hundred times), Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-8:1 in particular proved to be a favorite text for early Christian writers. In this passage wisdom is personified and characterized by twenty-one attributes, including such theologically provocative statements as “For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness” and, “For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty”. On hundreds of occasions early Christian writers linked Wisdom 7 with such christologically significant New Testament passages as Colossians 1:15, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Hebrews 1:4, and John 14:9, 10. This christological correspondence became especially important in the fourth century with the rise of Arianism, and the Arian debate also raised pneumatological questions to which the Wisdom of Solomon could speak. For example, Ambrose linked Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-23 with 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 to explain the Holy Spirit’s role in dispensing and developing wisdom and discernment within the Church. The Donatist theologian Tyconius, a contemporary of Ambrose, made this same textual connection as well ..."
Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 305–306.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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